


I Lost You When

by afrocurl



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Bar Mitzvah/Bat Mitzvah, Coming of Age, Gen, Genocide, Holocaust, Judaism, PTSD, Rosh HaShana | Jewish New Year, Yom Kippur | Atonement Day, loss of faith/religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 23:39:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was lost, but can he find himself?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Lost You When

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pearl_o](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/gifts).



> Please mind the tags, everyone. For something so short, it whacks a hell of a punch.
> 
> This probably went a little darker than you wanted it, **pearl-o** , but the ideas couldn't leave me alone. Erik's Judaism, or lack thereof, tend to do that with me.

The SS came just as he started going to shul for work on reading the Torah. He hadn’t the time to think of what it meant to not learn to read the scrolled text without vowels. He had more important things to worry about as he stepped off the train into the camp.

He had to protect his family, keep them together.

Metal moved.

All that he had wanted slipped through his fingers, just as he couldn’t control the metal well enough to stop the officers from separating him from mame and tate.

 

*

By the time the Allies came to liberate the camps, he felt no sense of who he had been as a young boy.

He was no longer the boy who mystically moved metal. Now he was a man who was a weapon, a tool to be used.

Judaism, it meant nothing now. It was how he found himself here, without a family and without direction.

*

Septembers reminded him of sweet new years and penance.

Only, he never found another shul.

Never found his peace.

Maybe all of this now was atonement.

Pain and anguish, meant as signs he needed to repent more.

Had more to say he was sorry for.

Fuckin’ nonsense, he realized.

There was nothing there to apologize for.

Except maybe mame.

Always mame.

*

Cold water slapped his face, as the one man who took everything from him drifted away.

He still had much to atone for.

Steady arms, though, tried to say he did not.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta on this one, as always.
> 
> Title from _(You Come In) Burned_ by The Dandy Warhols.
> 
> Yiddish notes: mame: mother; tate: father. 
> 
> Hebrew notes: shul: temple.


End file.
